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Concern for the homogenization of America's urban landscape prompted a recent research study into the care and maintenance of residential landscapes. The study demonstrated fewer similarities than expected but the concern, according to researchers is that "Lawns not only cover a larger extent [of land] than any other irrigated 'crop' in the U.S., but are expected to expand in coming decades. The researchers go on to point out that the potential homogenization of residential lawn care has emerged as a major concern for carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and water flows."

Concern for the homogenization of
America's urban landscape prompted a recent research study into the care and
maintenance of residential landscapes. The study demonstrated fewer
similarities than expected but the concern, according to researchers is that
"Lawns not only cover a larger extent [of land] than any other irrigated
'crop' in the U.S., but are expected to expand in coming decades. The
researchers go on to point out that the potential homogenization of residential
lawn care has emerged as a major concern for carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and
water flows."

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Published in in this week's issue
of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), ecologists
Colin Polsky of Clark University in Worcester, MA, Peter Groffman of the
Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, NY, and colleagues from 10
other institutions are the lawn care habits from 6 cities representing various
native environments including desert, plain, mountain and coastal.

"The approach in this study
can be used to test other ideas about how people who live in cities--now more
than three-quarters of Americans--decide to manage their yards," says
Henry Gholz, a program director in NSF's Division of Environmental Biology.

"This should open a new phase
in the field of urban ecology."

The scientists "homogenization
hypothesis," theorized and tested that despite local environmental
conditions, urbanization produces similar human land management behaviors. The
study used the results from 9,500 residents in San Diego, Miami, Philadelphia,
Chicago, Phoenix and Levittown, NY, questioning irrigation and fertilization
habits in the similar style neighborhoods.

Of the respondents, 63 percent
fertilized their yards and 79 percent watered within the last year. There were
some similarities as well as differences in lawn care practices from city to city.

The concern however is ecosystem
sustainability and the most widespread indicator may be immediately in front of
us each and every day. Because lawn fertilizer contains
nutrients such as phosphorus and nitrogen that wash into waterways, unwanted
and ecologically detrimental blooms of algae can and will rob fish and other
aquatic species of oxygen and degrading water quality.

And while according to Polsky,
"responding to lawn care-related environmental challenges may require
locally-tailored solutions in more cases than we thought," Groffman adds
that suburban and urban lawns now "occupy an extensive area in the U.S.
and have effects--good and bad--on environmental quality, and on human quality
of life" making residential landscapes critical to sustainability science.